Currently in the transportation industry, wooden pallets are used to store material when shipping, and pallet racking systems are used when in storage. Because the wooden pallet has only a bottom and generally no sides, material to be transported is loaded on top of the pallet and secured using shrink wrap which is also a protection mechanism for the material. There is no known designed stacking mechanism for pallets so they are stacked only if the material loaded presents a flat enough surface to load another pallet on top it. The pallet racking systems are usually fixed inside of buildings and are not adjustable for load sizes.
In both instances described above it is not possible to maximize available space in the transportation means, such as a road, air, rail, and sea, and protect or secure the load fully.
Currently wood is used for blocking and bracing of loads inside of a shipping container. Based on the sizes and dimensions of pallets or other loaded items, wood is cut to size and placed to brace the internal load. This wood is cut to specific load configurations and usually cannot be used for the same application more than once so it is discarded when the shipping container is unloaded.
Other known intermodal containers do not provide shock dampening, self-centered stacking and maximizing of available space. Other known intermodal containers are generally very heavy which leads to problems in of itself.
Thus there is a need for an intermodal container that overcomes the above listed and other disadvantages.